Mutant Star

by Karen Haber

  He had left the strange city behind. Here were familiar blond hills topped by green oaks, neat houses, and well-manicured yards. In the distance he saw the gentle curve of blue water, the spires of bright buildings glittering whenever sunlight broke through the fog. He knew this place. Berkeley. The campus was serene, untouched by earthquake. The town was in its perpetual half spring, the morning fog draining color from the foliage and houses, muffling sounds, leaving condensation beading the long, gray-green leaves of eucalyptus trees. The cool air felt good. Rick walked down Hearst Street until he reached Oxford and turned right, away from campus. The houses were smaller here, dating back a hundred years or more. The yards were filled with pink-flowered fruit trees and early wisteria sending up white and purple blooms.

  He turned and walked toward University Avenue. At the corner of University and Shattuck, he paused. Around him, all around him, were people hurrying by, caught up in their own concerns, heads down, eyes averted. Busy. Giggling students, grim-faced professors in blue university-issue stretch suits, hustlers and beggars, lawyers on their lunch hours. One moment, they were anonymous and unknown. Then an opening, the subtle vibration that signaled the parting of veils, of defenses, and they were strangers no more. Every quirk, every human fallacy, every hope and fear, were open to him, as readable as a line on a screen.

  That old woman in the green sack suit over there still mourned her son, dead twenty years. This middle-aged, scholarly-looking man worried about attaining tenure, this woman wondered what had become of her childhood sweetheart, this pimply-faced teenager was afraid that he’d never be able to find a place in the world, that he would always be alone.

  But their fears were all the same. Rick gasped at the thought. An old woman walking past him drew herself deeper into the safety of her coat and hurried away. He looked around, fascinated. These people, distinct in the privacy of their obsessive fretting, were nevertheless drenched with commonality of concern, of emotion. Their many voices joined in a strange mental harmony that he could hear: dissonant, so many varying keys, but harmonic just the same—the thousand upon thousand nuances of personal tone moving up the scale and down, the notes blurring here and there in a rousing chorus, a symphony of humanity. All were alone, and none were alone. He could see this where they could not. He could move between and among them. Witness their triumphs, their pains, their fears. Their unique and unifying humanity. He could love them, yes. He could love them, for a moment.

  He wanted to grab the guy eating a choba roll on the corner and hug him. And the small blond woman over there with her two-year-old daughter standing in the doorway of the university day-care center. And the thin man in the low-g wheelchair. To grab hands and blurt out what he knew—what they all could know. To ease their pain. Yes. Do it. Do it.

  He was shaking with exultation and fear. He reached out eager arms to the nearest stranger. But his hands weren’t steady. His entire body was vibrating. The scene disintegrated. He was lying on his back looking up at the ceiling. Ethan Hawkins was holding his shoulder, shaking him. Alanna stood behind him, pale-faced. And in the corner of the room, a strange woman with golden eyes and a cloud of white hair smiled at him strangely.

  “Rick, can you hear me?” Hawkins said. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” He sat up slowly. “Fine, Colonel. In fact, I feel better than that. I feel bloody damn wonderful.”

  .

  ******************

  11

  “Mrs. Akimura? My name is Rita Saiken.”

  A tall woman in blue healer’s garb stood in the doorway of Melanie’s office. Melanie hit the pause button on her editing screen. The image froze: a thin, black-haired woman in purple body paint, suspended midair, midleap.

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” she said. “I’m right in the middle of cutting a tape.”

  “This concerns your son.”

  “Julian? I just spoke to him. He’s fine.”

  “The other.”

  “You know where Rick is?” Melanie’s eyebrows shot upward. “Julian thought he might have signed on with the merchant shuttle corps.”

  “He is in space. On Ethan Hawkins’s Pavilion.”

  “But when I called, Hawkins said he hadn’t seen him.” Melanie gave her a suspicious look. “How do you know this?”

  “One of my sisters tended him there.”

  “Rick was hurt?”

  “He’s fine now,” the healer said. “Apparently he overextended his new talents.”

  Melanie leaned toward her. “It’s true then? He’s become a functional mutant?”

  “Yes. Your son is quite an unusual multitalent.”

  “That isn’t exactly easy for me to believe.”

  Saiken’s expression was faintly condescending. “We’ve done a full tissue analysis and partial mental probe. As far as we can tell, he is unique. You, of course, are a full null.” The healer’s voice was flat, dismissive. “On the other hand, his father is fully operant. You understand that we’re anxious to study this thoroughly. I hope both biological parents will cooperate. The father’s genes must have specific qualities that when coupled with yours created this delayed operancy in your son. Possibly the null state is merely a latency period that when combined with certain aspects …”

  “His father?” Melanie’s heart pounded. “You mean you know who the biological father is? I thought those records were lost years ago.”

  Saiken’s smile grew deeper. “Yes, of course they were. But now we’ve run enough tests and blood analyses to be fairly certain of the match.”

  “My God. I never thought I’d have to face this.” Melanie leaned back in her chair and turned away from the healer.

  “May I?” Saiken brandished a memory cube.

  Numbly, Melanie took it and inserted it into her deskscreen.

  “See? Here and here, the genetic maps are almost identical.”

  An orange file marked Rick Akimura took up the left side of the screen. In the middle was a sandwich of genetic charts, nearly twinned. And on the right was a green chart. The name atop it was one she knew all too well.

  Melanie stared in disbelief. No. It couldn’t be.

  “Skerry?”

  No, no. Impossible.

  Strange, volatile Skerry the father of Rick and Julian? The walls seemed to dance in and out around Melanie. She felt strange, giddy, even dizzy. Rick was Skerry’s son. And he was in love with Alanna. His sister.

  “There must be some mistake,” Melanie said. Her voice sounded faint and unfamiliar, as though someone else had spoken.

  “No mistake,” Saiken said. “We’ll notify the father next.”

  “Wait,” Melanie said. “You can’t do that!”

  “He has a right to know. And we’d like a fresh tissue sample from him as well.”

  “Please. Let me do it. I’ll tell him.”

  “But the tissue sample. It’s crucial for complete identification purposes. We can’t begin to understand a genetic phenomenon of this magnitude unless we’re absolutely certain who the parents are. And of course we’ll need to test Rick, too. At our facilities, preferably.” Saiken smiled at her oddly.

  “I’ll talk to him. Ask him to see you. He’ll listen to me.

  “That would be best.” The healer rose. “Well, then, I leave it to you.”

  Melanie heard the door close. She was alone in her office. Slowly, with shaking hands, she reached for her intercom.

  “No calls, Jeannine. No calls. For the rest of the day.”

  ***

  Yosh looked across the table at his wife, shock numbing him.

  “I know this is hard,” Melanie said. Her eyes were glassy. “I’m sorry. I hate telling you.”

  Yosh tried to pretend that nothing had changed. There she sat in the warm crylight of their kitchen, chic in her red silk, his wife of almost thirty years. Her words chilled him to his soul.

  His sons were Skerry’s children.

  It couldn’t be, could it?

  To
his surprise and dismay he felt anger, jealousy, every atavistic emotion he could name. If Yosh had been asked to translate these feelings into music, he would have created a score filled with crashing chords and high, atonal screeches: Schoenberg meets Wagner. Akimura’s Folly, the new symphony.

  “Are you sure?”

  “You’ve asked me that three times,” Melanie said. Her face was pale but composed. She sipped meditatively from a self-heating flask of sake. From time to time she pressed two fingers against the opalescent biofeedback pendant pulsing at her throat. Composure maintenance—Mel was so good at that. Yosh had teased her in the past about her “talismans against anxiety.” Now he envied them.

  “Is Skerry going to be told about this?”

  “Yes. They said it’s necessary. I asked to be the one to tell him myself.”

  “But you haven’t told him yet, have you?”

  Melanie pressed against the pendant again and closed her eyes. “Not yet. I haven’t even told Julian.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  She opened her eyes, met his gaze. “I wanted you to know about it first.”

  Yosh had grown accustomed to her eyes, to the mutant sheen of gold, so different from the blue contact lenses she had worn when first they’d met. Back then, she had been eager to hide her mutancy. There had been no thought of children, of artificial insemination. The world had been smaller, somehow, and brighter. He was so tired now. Had he ever been tired then?

  “I’m glad you waited,” he said, and reached across the table to squeeze her hand.

  “But you’re upset.”

  “Of course I am,” Yosh said. “It’s much easier to have the sperm donor be some abstract, anonymous figure. This complicates so many things, so many lives. Must we tell Narlydda and Skerry?”

  “I’m afraid so. Skerry has to be tested to make sure there’s not an error in the records. After all, they have to know if he really is the father. They’ve never seen anything like Rick before. Skerry’s genes are crucial to their investigations. And if I don’t tell him, Rita Saiken will. Besides, there’s another angle involved in this.” She paused, and her eyes glistened with tears. “Rick and Alanna. They’re living together on Hawkins’s Pavilion. Yosh, they’re brother and sister. What choice do we have? Skerry has to be told. And the kids.” She shook her head. “Poor Rick.”

  “How do you think he’ll take it?”

  “I don’t know; I don’t want to know.” Her voice broke, and she rested her head in her hands. So much for talismans.

  Yosh moved around the ring seat until he was next to her. Gently he took her into his arms and cradled her against his shoulder as she sobbed. “Shhh,” he said, half humming to himself. “It’ll be all right.”

  “How can we tell them?”

  “We’ll find a way,” Josh said, putting confidence into his voice that he didn’t feel. “We’ll find a way. But let’s call Julian first.”

  ***

  Julian was tired of dust. Tired of sifting through earthquake debris for any sign of survivors. His parents had begged him to come home but he had shrugged off their pleas and signed on with the Berkeley rescue squads, thinking that his telepathic powers would be useful in locating trapped survivors. Now, a week later, he was tired, demoralized, and lonely. He had helped carry too many lifeless bodies. Seen too many lives and homes destroyed. Although strong, the quake had “bounced,” sparing much of the surrounding communities while shock waves dissipated into the sea. San Francisco had suffered a few broken windows and water mains. Minor damage. But Berkeley and Oakland had not been as lucky. Slowly the cities were regrouping. Work crews were already rewiring, replastering, planning to rebuild. But it would all take time.

  The message light on Julian’s homescreen blinked weakly: its auxiliary power source was almost depleted. Julian flicked on the screen, boosting the volume. There was no picture, but he heard Eva’s voice faintly. “Julian, I’ve gone out of town. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Look, I’m sorry to do this. But I’ve just got to get away. I’ll talk to you when I get back.”

  Eva had abandoned the lab? Abandoned him? How could she do that? Where had she gone? And when she got back, what would become of them? Anger and dismay welled up inside him until he wanted to put his fist through the screen.

  Get out of here, he thought. Go to the lab. Clean up. Do something.

  In fifteen minutes he was standing in the doorway of what had been the Flare Project lab. Inside, Hugh Dalheim, the psychology department head, was talking to a workman as a crew of mechs repaired the electrical system. Overhead lamps flared on and off like old-fashioned theatrical lightning.

  Dalheim bustled over. He wore a University Quake Squad armband and headgear. “Julian. Eva here?”

  “No.”

  “When will she return?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dalheim squinted at him, fishlike, through the domes of his safety goggles. “You mean she left you here to pick up the pieces?”

  “No, not really. She’ll be back soon.”

  “Good. Tell her I’m reassigning this space to Henderson’s chimps. Once it’s repaired, of course.”

  “But that will destroy the Flare Project. And my dissertation—”

  Dalheim’s expression was pitying. “Son, I’m sorry. But you can see that the lab’s no use to Eva as is. We can’t afford to replace her equipment. Henderson is much more cost-efficient.” He paused. “Look, I’ll tell you what. Come see me in a month or so and I’ll put in a good word for you with Ron Henderson. I know he’ll be looking for bright grad students.” A shower of dust and plaster particles rained down, accumulating on Julian’s head and shoulders. “And get some safety gear if you intend to hang around here.” Dalheim moved on out the door.

  “Thanks.” Julian brushed the dust from his shirt. Dully, he watched the mechs at work in the lab—Henderson’s lab. There was nothing left for him to do here.

  He walked slowly back to his apartment, head down. The electricity had been restored. Maybe he had overlooked something to eat in the pantry.

  A message blinked, red against yellow, on his screen.

  Come home. URGENT.

  No arguing with that. And Julian didn’t want to argue. He felt as though he had stayed in Berkeley too long already.

  He packed quickly and hurried down to the bullet train station. Three hours later he walked into his parents’ house in Westwood.

  His mother was sitting by the atrium window in the kitchen, staring out blindly at the pink and yellow hibiscus blossoms. Her eyes were red, puffy. She gave him a watery smile.

  “Sit down, Julian.” His father leaned against the counter, arms folded.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  An impenetrable look passed between his parents.

  “It’s Rick, isn’t it?” Julian said.

  “No,” Yosh said. “As far as we know, your brother is fine.”

  “Then what?”

  “It’s your father …” Yosh said.

  Julian gazed at him, baffled. “You’re my father.”

  “Not really. You know that.”

  “You mean—”

  Melanie sat up, jaw set. “Quite unexpectedly we’ve learned who your biological father is. Do you want to know?”

  “My biological father?” Curiosity surged through him. “Yes, of course. Tell me!”

  His mother hesitated.

  “What are you waiting for?” Julian said. “Is he Jack the Ripper?”

  Yosh nearly smiled. “Not quite.”

  “It’s Skerry,” Melanie said. “Skerry is your father.”

  Julian chuckled. “Very funny. Now who is it, really?” Then he stopped chuckling. Yosh was pacing the length of the kitchen, head down. Melanie was staring at Julian, her lips were trembling.

  “It can’t be Skerry,” he said.

  “We have proof.”

  “Proof? What proof?” He leaped to his feet. “What are you talking about?”

&n
bsp; “Blood analyses. Genetic markers.”

  “I thought those records were all destroyed in a fire, years ago.”

  “They were. But a healer took a tissue sample from your brother on Hawkins’s Pavilion and ran a full battery of tests, then used the Mutant Council Genetic Net to come up with the match.”

  “A healer took a sample from Rick? Why?”

  “He was overextending his talents and collapsed.”

  “Now I’m really confused.” Julian felt suddenly lightheaded. He sat down next to his mother.

  “You’re not alone,” Melanie said. “And it seems that your brother really has become operant. He’s a multitalent.”

  “My God.” Everything was happening too fast. Rick a multi? Was that what all those strange flare visions were about, Rick’s change from null to multi? It made sense, in a way. But how could Skerry be his and Rick’s father? Julian gazed around the familiar room as though he’d never seen it before. Yosh was his father. Yosh had taught him how to skip and play notes on the claviflute. He’d taken him to school, to the doctor. Had provided comfort and discipline. Humor. Love. That was more important than any blood analysis, wasn’t it? Julian drew a deep breath.

  Then he thought of Alanna.

  “Have you told Skerry or Narlydda?” he asked.

  “We thought you should know first,” Melanie said. “How do you feel?”

  “Weird. I never had much to do with Skerry. He always seemed kind of crazy to me. Still does.” Julian shook his head. “I guess it’ll take a while to sink in.”

  Melanie smiled weakly. “Maybe later you’ll want to get to know him.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Mel, you’ve got to try to call Rick again,” Yosh said. “I think he’ll have more trouble with this than Julian.”

  “I know,” Melanie said. “I’ve sent a message. No response, so far.”

  “I’ll go.”

  “No, Julian. It’s not your place …”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s your doctorate.”

  “My doctorate’s on hold.” And so is the rest of my life. “Maybe Ethan Hawkins has a use for me, too.”